


Last Game

by Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)



Series: Don't Be Bashful [8]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Acting, Advice, Arguing, Canon Backstory, Computers, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Denial, Dissociation, Established Relationship, Exposition, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Flirting, Foreshadowing, Friendship, Friendship/Love, High School, Husbands, Love, M/M, Male Friendship, Male Homosexuality, Male Protagonist, Married Couple, Mental Instability, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Performing Arts, Police, Post-Wedding, Psychopaths In Love, References to Hamlet, References to Shakespeare, Research, Romance, Same-Sex Marriage, Sequel, Serial Killers, Smoking, Students, Studying, Suspense, Suspicions, Tags Contain Spoilers, Teasing, Teen Romance, Tension, Texting, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Video & Computer Games, indie games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-13 11:45:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry
Summary: Soon to be eighteen, Ryder Scott lives in Syracuse, is a wannabe actor and coder, and is the son of a police officer. A year after the disappearances of his two favorite streamers and his favorite artist, there has been little police progress. No one is any closer to discovering who the culprit might be. Displeased, he decides to get to the bottom of it on his own.With reluctant help from his timid girlfriend, he attempts to figure out who’s behind the elusive indie game that connects the cases. But when he gets his answer, he realizes he might’ve dug too far―and unwittingly dug a grave or two.A short fictional suspense novel by Noëlle McHenry about a high schooler who becomes the next target of a ruthless serial killer. Sequel toOur Sick Obsessions.





	1. Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ignore the Camera](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520076) by [Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry). 
  * Inspired by [Our Sick Obsessions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13537836) by [Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry). 



> _“A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche_

Though the performance was over, it didn’t feel like a success. This was in part due to the audience’s lack of enthusiasm, but also due to the bad feeling Ryder had. As his peers went up for the curtain call, he paced around the backstage area, looking at everyone as they walked past. No one else seemed anywhere near as worried as he did. Did they not care? Did they even realize?  
          Fleur hadn’t been there for her final scene. Normally, this would’ve annoyed him. But while she’d always complained of stage fright, she’d never bailed before. She’d always sucked it up and been brave despite her anxiety, for his sake if anything. So, with this in mind, her failure to show for her only scene without lines was worrisome.  
          Of course, she wasn’t backstage, either. As far as he could tell, she’d disappeared. No one had seen her since she left the backstage area after her second-last scene. In light of recent events, that only made him feel worse.  
           _Where is she? What if . . . ?_ He dared not think about that. There were too many bad possibilities—too many which were plausible.  
           _Someone has to have seen her._ That led him to turn his attention to the entrance to the dressing room. Standing in the doorway was the drama teacher, Greg Michaels. Helpless, he approached him.  
          “Where’s Fleur?” he asked.  
          Mr. Michaels let out a huff and shrugged. “I wish I knew.” He looked a tad frustrated himself, if only because her disappearance had been an inconvenience. Before Ryder could say or ask anything more, he gave him a gentle nudge and gestured toward the stage. “Go!”  
          Ryder glanced out. The last thing he wanted to do now was pretend to care about the audience. His girlfriend could be in danger. They hadn’t seemed invested in the performance, anyway. But another urging nudge from Mr. Michaels forced him to head out into the spotlight.  
           _Goddamn it. Fleur was supposed to have gone on before me._  
          At the sight of him, the dull audience burst into loud applause and cheer. Were this any normal day, he might’ve been flattered. Now, he only felt a little nervous. Was this how Fleur felt? Stage fright had him by the throat. Stepping to midway between downstage and the stage apron, Ryder moved into the brightest spotlight and put on a terse smile. Placing his medieval-clothed arm over his abdomen, he gave a bow to stage right, then stage left. Then, coming up from his second of three bows, he froze.  
          It was hard to see the audience with the light shining down into his eyes. Even so, there was no mistaking what—who—he saw. Near the middle of house right, sitting calm in his seat but smirking as he clapped, was a familiar face. A face that filled Ryder with indescribable dread.  
          Cameron Fenn.

* * *

The disappearances of streamers KasGaming and Valcupine, August Lund and Val Kozel respectively, had always been an interesting case to Ryder Scott. It had been over a year since the last stream from the latter, in which he’d insisted he was about to die. Everyone in the chat thought it was an act—that the person who came out and “attacked” Val was August in disguise. It took until Christmas for it to sink it that they hadn’t streamed nor posted anything for over a month. In fact, a year later, still no one had heard from them.  
          As a fan, Ryder wished he’d watched their streams rather than waiting for highlight reels. Various users had uploaded the final stream in full to YouTube, but he would’ve liked to have seen it for himself. That way he could be sure that what he was seeing wasn’t doctored by a third party.  
          Leading up to the finale, the two streamers played an indie game called _Bashful Bunny_. Featuring a pink anthropomorphic rabbit of the same name, it seemed to pose as a game for children. But August and Val weren’t the only streamers to disappear soon after playing it. They were two of many, but also the _last_ two. Ryder’s biggest question was: _why?_  
          Was it because they were popular, more popular than the creator of the game was ready for? All the other streamers swallowed by the game were smaller. Or was there another reason?  
          Conspiracy theories filled the KasGaming and Valcupine fan bases, but Ryder took them all with a grain of salt. What he paid more attention to were the articles written on the disappearances by news stations. The police in Pittsburgh had yet to get anywhere with the case. Ryder could only hope the police in Syracuse would be better in such a situation, though he doubted it.  
          Sitting in bed with his legs crossed, Ryder scrolled down on the current article he was reading. This one did a brief analysis of the frame that Bashful, or rather a man in a costume of the character, appeared. Following the chat’s recommendation of it being August, it compared a frame of August. Even Ryder had to admit the similarity was uncanny, but . . .  
          “It doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered to himself and scratched the underside of his chin.  
          What the news outlets ignored was how _Bashful Bunny_ got pulled from IndieDB a few hours after the final stream. Then, mirror downloads of it on the same and other platforms all started getting taken down. Someone was, even to this day, going out of their way to make sure the game got as few players as possible. Streamers who played it now had their streams blacklisted on Twitch. Did that mean Twitch had been in contact with the game’s creator? Either way, it wasn’t like anyone representing the platform would ever give away that information.  
          Every so often, the game would resurface for a few minutes. Ryder had never bothered to hunt for it. Yet, now, all of a sudden he had a desire to investigate. The game was made on a common engine: RPG Maker VX Ace. Though the project would be encrypted, decryption tools were readily available. He was only seventeen, but easily the top of his computer programming class. If he could only find a real copy of the game . . .  
          When his eyes fell onto the clock at the bottom right corner of his laptop screen, it was by accident. In doing this, though, he noticed that it was 6:50 AM.  
          “Oh, shit!” Without even closing the article, Ryder slapped his laptop shut.  
          A few minutes later he was bustling down the stairs, laptop bag slung over his shoulder. At the foot of the stairs he turned left, heading into the kitchen. On the counter was a plate with eggs and bacon on it.  
          “Your breakfast’s on the counter,” called a male voice from the other side of the house, in the dining room.  
          “I noticed,” Ryder called back. With how much of a rush he was in, he didn’t have time to sit down and eat. So, instead, he picked up one of the meaty eggs between his thumb and forefinger and stuffed it into his mouth. Though he preferred his eggs runny, he was for once thankful they weren’t.  
          On his phone he opened the Spotify app and pressed play on one of his playlists. Then, he popped an earbud into his right ear. With the music now playing at a low volume, he slipped his phone into one of the pockets of his dark purple hoodie. He then headed for the front door, a little to the right of the staircase. From the coatrack he grabbed his dark red parka.  
          “Aren’t you gonna come eat at the table?”  
          Ryder turned and looked down the hall, at the man sitting alone at the dining table. He took off his laptop bag and set it down beside the stairs, then approached the dining room as he pulled on his coat. “I thought you’d be at the station, dad.”  
          His father, Chris, shrugged his shoulders with a small smirk. “Not today, sport.” He took a long sip of coffee.  
          “You’re in uniform, though, so . . .”  
          Chris hummed, then hurried to swallow. “I’ve got to be there by 7:30. Which reminds me, aren’t you running late?”  
          Ryder zipped up his parka. “Yeah.”  
          “Well, eating at the dining table can wait until dinnertime, I suppose.”  
          Though the teen smiled at this remark, he felt a well of sadness opening up in the back of his mind. His indigo-colored eyes fell onto the seat he was standing in front of. With the table placed against the wall like this, there were only three seats. Before, he’d sat at the third, across from the wall. Now, there was no reason to, because . . .  
          He cleared his throat and looked up at his father. “I’d better go before I miss the bus,” he said, then turned and headed back toward the door.  
          “Did you check when it’s supposed to come?” Chris asked.  
          “Yeah,” he lied. As he walked past he snatched his bag from the floor. Draping it over his shoulder, he pulled open the door and closed it behind himself. After locking it, he started walking down Elliott St.  
          Halfway down the block, he unzipped his parka and pulled out his phone. After turning the volume up, he shoved the other earbud in, drowning out his surroundings.  
          He got to the intersection of West Onondaga St. and Dudley St. right as the 64 bus was pulling up to its stop. Once he’d stepped onto it, he revealed to the driver his student pass. Getting a nod from them, he put it back into his parka and moved further onto the bus. Then he wrapped his arm around one of the narrow beams and took out his phone again as the bus started to move. With one hand he minimized Spotify and opened his texts, selected his girlfriend’s name. On his phone, he’d nicknamed her “Flower”.  
          “On my way to school now,” he wrote. Before sending it, though, he reconsidered.  
           _Who gives a shit?_  
          That line of thought in mind, he deleted the text and put his phone back into his pocket.  
          It was around 7:20 by the time he arrived at Westhill High. Inside, he made a beeline for his locker. The halls were packed, so he almost had to push past people to get there. Something that got on his nerves more than people who walked slowly were people who sat in the halls with their legs out. He always worried that he’d step over one of them and they’d take offense. He’d already been beaten up on the street once for walking around someone who walked like they were coming down from a heavy MDMA binge.  
          No one paid much attention to him as he pulled open his locker. There wasn’t a whole lot inside—nothing relevant, at least. His binder fit nicely in his laptop bag, so he took it with him everywhere. What he did put inside now, though, was his parka. When he moved to close the locker, the sight of someone leaning against the one beside his almost made him jump.  
          “Christ, Isaac,” he grumbled.  
          The intruder, none other than his good friend Isaac Matthewson, laughed. Isaac was a bit of a douchebag, but he could be funny sometimes, so Ryder stuck around him for that. Other times, though, he was . . . well, a douchebag.  
          “What’s up, man?” he asked.  
          Ryder widened his eyes in mock-intrigue. “Life. Going to class.”  
          “Geez, you’re such a great actor. No wonder they cast you as Hamlet.”  
          “Shut up.”  
          At the other end of the hall, a pink blur passed through the crowd and headed to a locker. Ryder watched. When the crowd dispersed, he saw Fleur Petit there. Three years ago, Fleur’s family had moved to Syracuse from somewhere in France. She was in the grade below him, but the instant he saw her, he knew she was the one. He wasn’t even sure when they’d started dating anymore; it felt like they’d been dating forever.  
          Noticing he’d lost his friend’s attention, Isaac looked over his shoulder and too spotted Fleur. At the sight of her, he let out a wolf whistle. “Say, have you two banged yet?”  
          Ryder grimaced and slammed his locker shut. “Dude. Gross.”  
          “ _Gross_? What, you don’t think she’s smokin’ hot? I mean, look at her!” He pointed with his chin in her general direction. “Look at how those red skinny jeans hug her legs, how that wavy strawberry blonde hair falls onto her shoulders . . . Could do without the mole on her cheek, though. And the ruby-red demon eyes. _And_ you’ve got to admit she’s kind of _toasty_ for a Frenchie, but still. Mmm, _mmm_! What I wouldn’t give to get a slice of her.”  
          “Cut it out, you dick.” Ryder elbowed Isaac in the stomach, earning a guttural cringe from him. Looking at Fleur again, he explained, “It’s not that; she’s beautiful. But . . . she’s timid, you know? I don’t want to scare her away or anything. I want to”—he searched for the words to describe his feelings—“make it _right_ , you know?”  
          “Ha! Ryder, come on. Unless you’re going for some PC bitch, ‘right’ is boring! Chivalry is dead as fuck, so live a little!”  
          Tightening his grip on his laptop bag, Ryder shook his head. “And you wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend.”  
          “Girlfriend, _smerl_ friend. At least I’ve got some pussy.”  
          He shook his head again. “Why am I friends with you?” The question got no answer, as Isaac moved on and started bothering someone else in the hall. Fleur must’ve sensed eyes on her, because she turned her head and met his gaze. With a small smile, she raised her petite hand and waved at him. Smiling back, Ryder returned the gesture. Then, the bell rang.  
          Isaac passed by, shaking his hands in the air. “Oh, my God!” he gasped. “Time for class! I’m so excited!” As he disappeared around the corner, he let out a hushed scream, as if trying to simulate a cheering crowd.  
          Ryder rolled his eyes in amusement and followed after him. “Fuckin’ idiot.”


	2. Download

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted on March 28th, 2018.

By 12:28, Ryder was sitting near the back of his computer programming class. If he was being honest, he’d have to admit he’d only applied for the class for an easy A. Though his dad wasn’t as good as he was anymore, he’d learned the basics from him at a young age. So, for Ryder, computer programming class was a chance to use a school computer to his heart’s content. Not that it was any better than his laptop . . .  
          In the seat beside him, Isaac groaned. “Ryder.”  
          “Yeah?”  
          “Why doesn’t this work? I even copy-pasted it.”  
          The teacher, Ms. Meghan Lynwood, always told them not to copy-paste, but rather to type it out by hand. Ryder thought this was an awful teaching ethic; _of course_ everyone was going to copy-paste. How would she be able to tell they hadn’t? Even so, to make things less monotonous, he followed her instruction. When Isaac admitted he didn’t, though, it made Ryder feel like he’d lost faith in his generation _and_ like he’d wasted time.  
          The dark brown-haired seventeen-year-old leaned over and looked at his friend’s screen. After giving his code a quick skim, he diagnosed the problem: “There’s no semicolon.” To back this up, he pointed to where he meant.  
          “What?” asked Isaac. “Who gives a shit about a semicolon?”  
          “You have to put a semicolon at the end of a statement or else it won’t compile.”  
          “Then why wasn’t it included here?”  
          “Sometimes certain engines will still compile without a semicolon. This one won’t, though.”  
          “Bullshit,” Isaac complained. Ryder smirked and returned his attention to his own screen. He was already finished today’s work, which left him, as usual, with nothing else to do. Left to his own devices, he would fiddle with programs on the computer. By now, though, he’d exhausted all his options.  
           _Might as well try to learn_ something _while I’m here._  
          Opening up Wikipedia on his browser, he clicked the link labelled “Random article”. Article after article, one about a politician, about a village, about a Brazilian rock band . . . Nothing caught his eye. Some musician named Sara, a company based in Hong Kong, the Australian 3rd Brigade . . .  
           _What in the world is_ this _guy’s profession? “Paleontological”_ what _?_  
          Ryder leaned back in his seat and sighed. All of a sudden, he found himself wondering something.  
           _I wonder if there’s any Wikipedia articles about the_ Bashful Bunny _case . . ._  
          He moved his cursor up to the search bar. Typing into it, he searched “Valcupine”. Nothing. “Val Kozel”. Nothing. “KasGaming”, “August Lund”: nothing. The last thing he tried was “Bashful Bunny” itself. When it pulled up no results, he wondered what he was expecting.  
          “What are you looking up?”  
          Ryder looked at Isaac and shook his head. “Nothing.”  
          “You sure look serious for someone looking up ‘nothing’.”  
          Ryder shook his head again, letting out a soft chuckle. “Nah, it’s nothing, but . . .” Then, he sobered a bit. “Have you heard of _Bashful Bunny_?”  
          “Wasn’t it some cringe-y creepypasta thing?”  
          “Yeah, something like that.”  
          “You should look it up on the creepypasta wiki.”  
          “That place is full of shit,” the teen replied. “Don’t sort it in with that.”  
          “Why not? It’s not like it’s real or anything.”  
          Ryder glanced at Isaac, but his friend wasn’t even looking at him. Driven, the actor went to Google and looked up the article he was reading that morning. “Look.”  
          Isaac did. “So what?”  
          “So, they played _Bashful Bunny_. Twenty days later, they both disappeared.”  
          His friend raised his brows, skeptical. “Uh-huh.”  
          “They did! Look.” Remembering the handle, Ryder went to Val’s Twitter page. “Last post was on October 30th of last year.”  
          “Oh, yeah, that looks real.”  
          “What?”  
          “Who posts something like that? ‘Oh, boohoo, Kas is missing.’ _Faaake_.”  
          Ryder rolled his eyes. “Look, I know it sounds fake, but you didn’t see the stream.” He returned to the tab the article was open on and skimmed over its text again. Nothing new caught his eye.  
          “Why are you so interested in it, anyway?”  
          “I was a big fan of them. Besides, it’s kind of annoying when two people you like go missing and no one seems to give a damn to figure out what happened to them.”  
          “But they’re strangers. Who cares?”  
          “If some hot female celebrity went missing, someone you like or jerk off to or whatever you do, you’d want to get to the bottom of it, wouldn’t you?”  
          “I’d like to get to the bottom of something, if you catch my drift.” A pause. Quieter, “But yeah, I guess you’re right. Wait, did you just imply you jerked off to these two?”  
          Ignoring his immaturity, Ryder added, “That’s not all, though. This is where shit gets a little crazy.”  
          “All right, I’m listening.”  
          “Well, there was this artist I liked: Max Aleshire. He was a fan of them, too. Now, get this.”  
          “Uh-huh?”  
          Ryder turned in his seat, facing Isaac fully. “Six months before this, _he_ went missing, too.”  
          “No shit?” Isaac turned as well, though not so much. Despite the phrasing of his response, his tone suggested genuine intrigue.  
          “Look.” Ryder turned back to his computer. On Google he searched for an article about Max. Finding one, he opened it and showed it to Isaac. “April 2017. Max’s ex-girlfriend was found murdered in her home. When police went to his apartment to question him, they found it empty. All his shit was still there but for his phone, wallet, and keys. But he was gone. A few months go by, then _Bashful Bunny_ appears online. Six months later, two streamers he was a fan of disappear. Then, _Bashful Bunny_ is taken down.”  
          “So, what?” Isaac began. “You think he killed his ex, then ran off to make some shitty indie game to kill his favorite streamers?”  
          But again, Ryder shook his head. “No, I don’t think that. I don’t know what I think, to be honest. If I could get my hands on that game, maybe I could figure something out. Max didn’t seem the type to do things like this, so I doubt he had a hand in it. But he _did_ say he was working on a game in the same engine about a week before he disappeared . . .”  
          “He did it.”  
          “What makes you think that?”  
          “Come on, it’s obvious. All those coincidences. There’s too many of them. Besides, look at him!” Isaac pointed at the screen, at a picture of Max. “Totally gay.”  
          “What does that have to do with anything?” Ryder inquired, chuckling a bit.  
          “Hello, boys.”  
          Both teens froze when they heard the teacher’s voice behind them. As slow as they could, they cocked their heads toward her and forced innocent smiles onto their faces.  
          “Hi, Ms. Lynwood,” Ryder mumbled.  
          “Fancy meeting you here,” added Isaac.  
          The woman smirked a bit and let out a deep breath through her nostrils. Somewhat terse, she said, “I’m glad you two are enjoying yourselves, but I’m concerned there’s not enough _work_ being done.”  
          “Oh, well, I’m halfway done,” Isaac admitted, pointing toward his screen.  
          “And I’m finished,” Ryder told her.  
          “Really? Can I see?” With her knowing him, he knew the inquiry was made less out of suspicion and more out of a desire to be certain. So rather than take any offense, Ryder complied. Closing the browser, he brought up his compiler and showed her the code. She skimmed her eyes over it. Then, she nodded.  
          “Does it work?”  
          “Yep.” To prove it, he ran the code in the engine. When prompted, he typed things into the output box. Upon pressing enter, the code returned the expected response.  
          Ms. Lynwood nodded again. “Good. I’ll leave you two to it, then. Ryder, do some work from another class.”  
          “Sure,” Ryder replied, despite not having any such work to do.  
          “Oh, and try not to distract Isaac.”  
          “I won’t.”  
          When she walked away to the other side of the room, Isaac watched her go, then looked at him. “TILF.”  
          “You serious?”  
          “She’s got a nice ass.”  
          “You’ve got a problem, dude.” Ryder closed the compiler.  
          “Anyway, I’m telling you, man: if you find that shitty game somewhere, I bet you it’s sending all its data to some IP address in—where’s that guy from?”  
          “Boston. He disappeared in Boston.”  
          “Bet you it’s sending shit there. C’mon, don’t you think it’s him? Doesn’t your _dad_ think it’s him? I mean, he’s a cop, isn’t he?”  
          Ryder scoffed. “My dad’s got no opinion on the case. I wish he did. If even _he_ doesn’t care about the case, it’s no wonder no one’s figured anything out.”  
          “You should find that game, though. Play it when you do, to laugh at how stupid it’s got to be.”  
          “The game’s never up anywhere for more than a few minutes at a time.”  
          “Hey, what better time to search? It’s only 12:40. Whoever’s taking it down has to take a lunch break sometime.”  
          “Unless it’s a bot.”  
          “If it’s a bot, then I bet someone’s put it up under a fake name or something.”  
          Ryder considered that. “You really think I should hunt it down?”  
          “The way I see it, Ryder, is if no one _else_ is gonna do it, then why not?”  
          The actor fidgeted in his seat and gazed at the screen. As he scratched the underside of his chin, he dwelled on those words. “I never thought I’d say this, but you’ve got a point.”  
          “Go forth into the wild, my son,” droned his smug friend. “Viruses galore await you on your quest to find the world’s worst indie game.”  
          “Come what may,” retaliated Ryder with sarcasm, “ransomware and malware alike.”  
          “It’s not like it’s _your_ computer at risk right now. It’ll be the school’s problem. So fuck it.”  
          Ryder grinned. “Exactly.”  
          When Isaac returned to his work, he opened the browser again and started Googling. The first page of results was filled with articles and theories about the disappearances.  
           _Have to be a little more_ specific _with what I want . . ._  
          Adding “download” to the end of his search, he was then greeted with another pageful of results. Most of the links lower down the page seemed sketchy, so he kept his attention on the first handful.  
          The first link lead him to a forum thread where someone asked for a link to download the game. In response, someone told them to “respect the creator’s wishes by not hunting it down”.  
           _Fuck you_ , Ryder thought to that one person in particular. _I want what I want and the “creator’s wishes” won’t change shit._  
          Under that reply was another, with a Dropbox link. He didn’t have high hopes going into it, so finding that the file no longer existed was no surprise. Going further down the rabbit hole, he looked at related forum posts. Every link he found was dead, be it from Dropbox, MediaFire, 4Shared . . . He even found an encrypted link on Pastebin. The comments were what let him know it was dead.  
          Yet, as he was about to give up, he saw a post on Reddit made only an hour beforehand. “My copy of BB” was the title.  
           _I have a strong feeling this is fake, but what do I have to lose?_  
          Rather than read the post, Ryder skimmed down to the link. With a right-click, he opened it in a new tab. To his surprise, the link was still live. “BB.zip”, the file was named. It was a little over 150 megabytes.  
           _It’s either fake or somehow hasn’t been caught yet. But the file size seems kind of accurate . . ._  
          Willing to take that risk, Ryder clicked the green download button. As fast as he could, he opened his student drive on the network and saved the file.  
           _What are the odds of it getting taken down as I’m downloading it? Would that interrupt the download? Shit, that’d suck. Or what if it doesn’t fit on my share of the network?_  
          He watched anxiously as the download timer ticked down. Two minutes 39 seconds . . . Two minutes 38 seconds . . . Two minutes 37 seconds . . . It felt like it wasn’t moving fast enough. He couldn’t help but worry that something would interrupt it and he’d squander his only chance to get to the bottom of this.  
           _I have my USB drive with me. Why didn’t I start downloading it onto that instead?  
          Because that’d be even slower. My USB drive has terrible read/write speed._  
          “Hey, Ryder.”  
          “What?”  
          “Look at this.”  
          Ryder looked over at Isaac’s screen. The cocky little bastard had Photoshop open, with the same picture of Max used in the article. With the lasso selection tool, he’d selected the top half of his head. Then, as he talked in a high-pitched voice, he moved it up and down to simulate an opening mouth.  
          “ _Hi, I’m gay_!”  
          Ryder laughed, but felt part of him deep inside cringe. “Dude, that’s so tasteless. That guy could be dead.”  
          “Who am I going to offend? His boyfriend?”  
          “You’re a despicable human being.”  
          “And don’t I love it.” Beaming from ear to ear, Isaac closed Photoshop, but not before drawing a mustache on Max.  
          When he looked back at his screen, Ryder noticed the download had completed. It hadn’t felt like two and a half minutes had passed.  
           _Did the download speed jump up or did it give up?_  
          Not thinking, he closed the tab before opening Windows Explorer. With it, he investigated the file on his student drive. It was still around 150 megabytes, so at least the size was accurate. Checking its properties, he made sure it was in fact a ZIP archive and not something else. Finally, he double-clicked it. There were no errors opening the archive. Inside was a folder titled “bashfulbunny”. Inside that folder were the game’s files, including the executable and RPG Maker VX Ace project file of the same name.  
           _Looks genuine enough . . . Won’t know for sure until I decrypt that project file, though._  
          Now almost confident in its authenticity, he returned to the post itself to read it over.  
          “I would normally never upload something like this,” the poster said, “but to my knowledge no one else has this anymore. I will not post this again, so get it while you can.”  
          Ryder found himself having difficulty believing that. Could this truly be the last copy of it that would ever surface online? Even if it was, it couldn’t be for long. After all, it’d been up for a little over an hour now. Someone other than him had to have snatched it, someone who’d host a mirror themselves. Was it even possible to weed something off the internet for good? Ryder didn’t think so.  
           _I don’t have a whole lot of time to decrypt the project file here, nor do I have VX Ace on hand. Guess it might’ve saved time to download onto my USB drive anyway._  
          With a small sigh, Ryder reached down to the floor and opened his laptop bag. In one of its pockets he found his slim black USB drive. After plugging it into a port on the computer, he waited for its Autoplay box to appear and closed it.  
           _Why did I close that tab? I’m a dumbass._  
          This time, he middle-clicked on the link instead, opening it in a new tab faster. When it loaded, though, to his surprise the link led to something different.  
           _What? File not found? But . . . I downloaded it only a second ago!_  
          He returned to the tab with the Reddit post and refreshed. Lo and behold, it’d been edited a few minutes ago.  
          “EDIT: And there it goes. Link is dead now. That didn’t take long.”  
          Ryder could hardly believe the timing. _Well, I’m glad I looked it up when I did. Good thing I already downloaded it._  
          Returning to his student drive, he found the ZIP archive and pressed “Ctrl” and “C” on his keyboard to copy it. Then he navigated to his USB drive. In the root file, he pressed “Ctrl” and “V”. A progress bar popped up, reading “Copying 1 file . . .” The estimated time remaining at first went down, until the green bar made it halfway. Then, it froze, and the time remaining began to steadily tick up.  
           _Goddamn piece of shit. I swear I need a new drive._  
          He wasn’t worried until he glanced at the clock. 1:17. As if to add further impact to his discovery, the bell rang right after. His peers started to pack up, most already ready to change classes.  
           _Shit._  
          Lingering too long might seem suspicious, but still the timer was ticking up. Staring at it, anxiety levels rising, he sat rigid trying to will it to complete.  
           _Come on, come on, come on . . ._  
          “Hey,” Isaac said as he stood up. “Good luck in theater today. I heard Mr. Michaels is _cranky_ today.”  
          Ryder glanced up at him, trying to seem unstressed as he lifted his bag over his shoulder. “What, you mean like always?”  
          “Worse.” With that taunting warning, Isaac smirked at him and headed out. Now there were only a few other students still in the room. Students from another grade level started to pile in. Ryder turned back to his screen, indigo eyes wide.  
           _Come on!_  
          Like a blessing from above, the green bar shot forward, timer dropping to one second remaining. After the promised duration, the window disappeared. Once he was sure the drive was no longer being written to, Ryder yanked it out of the computer and logged off. Then, before anyone else from his class left, he hurried out of the computer lab.  
           _Close call. Last thing I need is for Ms. Lynwood to suspect I’m stealing programs from the school computers or something._ Despite knowing her first thought would likely be more innocent, Ryder knew he could never be too careful. The less suspicious he seemed, the better. After all, the suspicious ones were the ones caught by police most often. Not that that analogy would apply here; the most he’d get would be firm questioning from her or the principal at worst.  
          While heading toward the theater, he tucked his drive back into its proper pocket and closed his bag. Taking a deep breath, he reached up and corrected his dark brown hair, as it felt out of its normal style. Making sure it was still parted to the right, bangs almost falling over that side of his face, he was again composed. Before pulling open the theater door, he thought about the performance.  
           _Do I even remember all my lines? If Isaac’s right, I’d better, or I’ll be in for an earful._  
          None of the students liked Mr. Michaels. Every day, he was the same: he shouted at anyone who did anything wrong. Ryder had to wonder what Mrs. Michaels was like. Was he angry all the time because of her, or did he go home to take out his hatred on her as well? Or was he only an asshole to teenagers? There had to be a reason he hadn’t been fired yet.  
          After stepping into the theater, the first person Ryder saw was Fleur. She was standing near the house seats, and upon seeing him enter, she smiled. Grinning back, Ryder stepped toward her.  
          “Hey, Flower.”  
          Her smile grew a bit more bashful. “Hello,” she crooned back. Because they were in different grade levels, theater was their only class together. They’d seen each other during lunch, but regardless the time apart, seeing each other always brightened their days.  
          “You ready for today? Second-last rehearsal before we have to run through the entire play in costume.”  
          Fleur nodded. Her ruby-red eyes, so different from his, were enchanting to him. Despite her clear urge to avoid eye contact with anyone else, she held it with him with little difficulty. “I’m nervous.”  
          Ryder smiled for her and held her hand. As he massaged the back with his thumb, he told her, “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll do perfect as always.”  
          “I don’t know if I can sing for this. Last time I did it Mr. Michaels told me to improve but I don’t know how.”  
          “Your singing’s beautiful. He’s just a bitter old man with bad hearing.”  
          Fleur giggled, flattered. Content with this sight, Ryder smiled gentler and gave her hand a soft squeeze.  
          “Let’s get backstage before Mr. Michaels throws a fit,” he suggested.  
          Comforted, the girl nodded. “Yes, let’s.”


	3. Motivation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted on March 31st, 2018.

“So, how was school?”  
          The question from his father made Ryder look up from his plate. After taking a moment to ponder the inquiry, though, he only shrugged. There wasn’t a whole lot to say—all in all, it had been a typical, boring day.  
          Sensing the distance, Chris sighed. “All right. How was rehearsal, then?”  
          “Usual,” Ryder answered.  
          “Anything eventful?”  
          “No. I remembered all my lines and there were no spectacular fuck-ups—”  
          “Ryder.”  
          “Right. No swearing at the dinner table. There were no spectacular _muck_ -ups.”  
          Chris flashed a wry grin. “Well, that’s good.”  
          Poking the vegetables on his plate with his fork, Ryder thought before revealing: “Mr. Michaels still doesn’t like Fleur’s singing.”  
          The cop lowered his own utensils. “He doesn’t?”  
          His son shook his head. “No. She was really nervous about it, too, so when he pointed it out she went backstage and cried. I couldn’t comfort her because they needed Hamlet for the rest of the scenes we did.”  
          Chris huffed. “I don’t see why she _needs_ to sing. If he doesn’t like it, he should let her talk instead.”  
          “It’s part of Ophelia’s character in the original play. He might’ve modernized the script for us, but he wants to stay true to it, I guess.” He shuffled the meat around as well. “But you’re right. I wish he’d change it for her. She’s got bad enough stage fright as it is without having to sing. Especially now that he’s shattered her confidence . . .”  
          “Let’s hope Mr. Michaels doesn’t have any kids of his own,” Chris remarked, then put a piece of chicken into his mouth. Ryder got a small chuckle out of this. After taking a sip of his drink, the cop then asked, “You do enjoy the class, right, sport? Despite your teacher being an asshole?”  
          “No swearing at the table,” Ryder teased.  
          Chris lowered his head, not bothering to hold back his smile. “Touché.”  
          “It’s all right, though. I like acting.”  
          “Do you want to be an actor when you’re older?”  
          This question made Ryder a little embarrassed. “Heh, I mean . . . I don’t know.”  
          “Just so you know, you don’t have to feel pressured to follow your old man. Whatever you want to be, I support.”  
          “Well, that’s just it. I don’t know yet. I have an idea, but I’m not sure yet. I’m almost eighteen, so I know should have my life planned out by now, but—”  
          “Mm-mm.” Chris shook his head. “No, that’s not true.” Once his son was looking at him, curiosity on his face, he told him, “I didn’t know what _I_ wanted to be until I was in my mid-twenties. In fact, I’m pretty sure most people go their whole _lives_ never knowing what they want to be. I doubt Mr. Michaels wants to be a performing arts teacher. So don’t feel pressured about having everything planned. That takes away the fun of life. Trying to find your calling is what makes life interesting.”  
          Ryder took this in. “Then why does everyone make it _seem_ like I need to know?”  
          Chris shrugged. “I guess we all have this naïve hope that we’ll have a kid who won’t be as lost as we are. That our children will find their calling before their hair’s graying.”  
          “Do you want that for me?”  
          “Of course I do!” He cut off another piece of chicken. “But if you don’t, don’t sweat it. I think finding our purpose in life _is_ our purpose in life.”  
          “So is it possible for someone’s purpose to be to help others find their purpose?”  
          “Someone’s purpose could be as simple as cheering a complete stranger up on a bad day. As bringing a child into the world or risking their life for someone they care about.”  
          “Could someone’s purpose be to put peanut butter on bread?”  
          “Well, now you’re stretching it a bit. But . . . I suppose. Quite a pitiful purpose, though, I’ll admit.”  
          The two of them shared a laugh. Once it was over, though, Ryder mulled over the advice.  
          “So, dad, uh . . .”  
          “Yeah?”  
          He scraped the prongs of his fork against the plate, creating a light scratching noise. “I, uh . . . Well, I looked into _Bashful Bunny_ some more, and—”  
          Chris couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he straightened himself. “Ryder.”  
          “Listen, there’s something up with that game, I know it.”  
          “Ryder, we agreed not to talk about this anymore.”  
          “I don’t understand why you can’t do _something_. You’re a cop!”  
          “A cop from Syracuse. Kozel and Lund went missing in Pittsburgh. Not a single aspect of the case has involved the state of New York, much less Syracuse.”  
          “So?”  
          “So, it’s out of my jurisdiction.”  
          “Max Aleshire was only two years older than I am now when he went missing.”  
          “Max Aleshire is an unrelated case.”  
          Ryder narrowed his eyes. “How can you be so sure?”  
          “Aleshire fled to hide from the law.”  
          “He didn’t kill his ex-girlfriend, dad.”  
          “How can _you_ be so sure?” Chris asked, turning the tables.  
          Ryder paused. He couldn’t be sure of that. “I have a feeling.”  
          “A feeling isn’t enough in this field. You need evidence, witnesses, confirmation of alibis . . . You can’t prove someone didn’t commit a murder by arguing that they ‘didn’t seem the type’.”  
          “Then by that logic, you can’t prove that _Bashful Bunny_ didn’t have a hand in those disappearances, or that Max isn’t connected.”  
          With a sigh, Chris shook his head. “I know you liked them, but you need to stop obsessing over it. I’m sure the police in Pittsburgh are doing all they can. Let them do their jobs.”  
          “But that’s the problem,” Ryder argued. “They _aren’t_! They clearly don’t even know what to _do_ anymore.”  
          “What they reveal to the press isn’t necessarily all they have. They might have a suspect.”  
          “How can you sit back and assume like that? None of those streamers have had justice!”  
          Finally, Chris sat forward, face hard-set. He clenched his hands. “Ryder, there are hundreds of cases in Syracuse alone. Cold cases, unsolved murders from decades and decades ago. Then there are the murders that happen in this city every day. I’m not a homicide detective. I’m a police officer. I report to the scene and write up what I find or pass it along to the detectives. We do our best to get everyone the justice they deserve.”  
          “And sometimes cases just fall to the sidelines, huh? When’s the last time you helped solve anything?”  
          His father narrowed his eyes as well, but didn’t comment on that. “My point is that we’re doing the best we can. As long as there’s crime in Syracuse, we can’t spare an officer who wants to provide assumptions about a year-old case centered in another state.”  
          For a long moment, Ryder said nothing. Then, his eyes fell onto his plate. As he nudged things on it with his fork, Chris took another sip of his drink. A tense, awkward pause arose between them. Finally, Ryder spoke.  
          “Look, I know it must be hard to work after losing mom. But how do you think I feel? Do you think it’s not difficult for me to get up and go to school every morning like she’s not gone? Some father you are if you give up on doing your _job_ because of that.”  
          Chris’ head shot up. “Go to your room. Now.”  
          “Gladly.” Ryder stood up, forceful in his exit from the dining table. Turning around, he headed for the staircase, leaving his father without even a glance. Halfway up the stairs, though, he stopped in his tracks.  
           _That wasn’t fair. I keep forgetting that he loved her as much as I did . . ._  
          It was hard for him to swallow his pride, but after a beat he managed to say, “I’m sorry.” Then, he hurried the rest of the way upstairs. Once in his room, he closed the door behind himself. Leaning against it, he let out a deep breath.  
           _He’s got a point anyway. It’s not in his jurisdiction. I just wish he’d take me seriously and not dismiss my theories, even if it’s not his case and I don’t have proof . . ._  
          His laptop bag was sitting on the foot of his bed. He headed over to it. From its pocket, he pulled out his USB drive.  
          “ _The way I see it, Ryder, is if no one_ else _is gonna do it, then why not?_ ”  
          Determined, Ryder sat down on the bed and pulled out his laptop. Once he’d opened it, he plugged its charger into the wall and the drive into one of its ports. As he waited for it to load, he took his phone out.  
          “I’m gonna do it,” he texted to Fleur.  
          A minute later, she replied, “Do what?”  
          “I got Bashful Bunny.” Finally, the drive loaded up. He opened its root folder, then the ZIP archive containing the game. Clicking and dragging its files, he copied them to a new folder on his desktop. As they extracted, his phone dinged.  
          “What are you going to do with it?”  
          “I’m gonna decrypt it and open it in VX Ace. Take a look at its scripts and whatnot, see how it functions.”  
          Fleur’s response: “Be careful.”  
          The progress window closed. After checking that everything extracted, he removed the drive and put it back its the pocket.  
           _Now to find a project extractor._  
          A little Google surfing later, he’d found what he was looking for. With a click and drag, he moved the “bashfulbunny.rgss3a” file onto the decryption tool’s icon.  
          “File read error,” it announced in a message box.  
           _Wait, what?_  
          He closed the error and used the drop-down “Open” command.  
          “File read error.”  
          Ryder stared at the message for a long moment, unsure of how to react. Then, it dawned on him: _Son of a bitch used some sort of manual encryption to prevent this. Hell if I know what format it is. Shit. Well, so much for dissecting it._  
          “It didn’t work,” Ryder texted.  
          “What will you do?”  
          He thought about it for a beat. “I need to know what IP address it’s sending information to. If I use Wireshark while it’s running, it should be able to tell me where it’s firing packets.”  
          “Wait. You’re going to play it?”  
          “It should be fine if I run it through a VPN. That way it can’t get my location.”  
          “Ryder, that’s not a good idea,” she warned. “It’s not safe.”  
          “Nobody else is gonna do it anymore. If I’m careful, nothing should come of it.”  
          “Please don’t do it. What if something happens to you?”  
          A small, sympathetic huff. “Don’t worry, Flower. I know what I’m doing. Listen, how about you get on Discord and I’ll share my screen so you can watch?”  
          “No, that sounds scary. I’ve heard stories about that game.” She added a frowning emoji to the end of this text.  
          “I’m still going to play it. I need to figure this out.”  
          “Are you sure?”  
          “Yeah. It’ll be fine.” He sent a smiling emoji as well.  
          There was a pause. Then, Fleur said, with the same emoji, “I’ll trust you.”  
          He grinned at his phone. “Do me a favor?”  
          “I can try.”  
          “Could you look for any information about Max Aleshire? Anything written or posted after April 2017? I’d do it, but I’m about to be a little busy.”  
          “Sure, I’ll look.”  
          “Let me know what you find.”  
          “I will. Be careful.”  
          “No promises,” Ryder responded with a winking emoji.  
          “I love you.”  
          “Love you too, Flower.”  
          She replied with a heart emoji. He did the same. Then, he put his phone down beside his laptop and took a breath.  
          After adjusting his proxy settings, he started the VPN software he used. Now certain his connection was secure, he opened the folder the game was in. Before starting it, though, he hesitated. His eyes moved up to the circle on the top middle of his laptop—the lens of his built-in webcam. Disabling it would be a hassle, but he recalled how Val and August suspected the game knew what they looked like. How could they think otherwise when the one-player game added a new character, both having their hair colors?  
          For a moment he didn’t know how to solve this dilemma without bothersome hardware disabling. Then, an idea. He reached for his bag, pulling his binder from it. Ripping off a corner of paper, he then got up from bed and headed over to his desk. There he found a roll of scotch tape. Using a piece or two, he stuck the paper to the lens. With that done, he sat back down and looked at his makeshift cover.  
           _It might not be pretty, but it’ll get the job done._  
          The microphone was still an issue. But that, he disabled with ease through the sound device options. Whether that would work or the game would re-enable it, he wasn’t sure. Either way, he’d have to make sure not to talk while it was running.  
           _What if it can still hear me afterward?_  
          Pfft. Yeah, right. What am I dealing with, the NSA? Though, doing a virus scan afterward wouldn’t hurt.  
          Before starting the game, he started Wireshark. Finally, he double-clicked the executable, which he only now noticed had a pink rabbit head for an icon—Bashful, if he had to guess. It took a few seconds for the title screen—blank but for the same cartoon-y rabbit face—to show up. During those seconds, Ryder witnessed Wireshark declare a sent package. Already, the game was delivering data.  
           _Oh, you’re making this too easy for me . . ._  
          Rather than waste memory on his laptop, he opened the browser on his phone and copied the IP address by hand. On a location tracker, the IP address threw him for a bit of a loop.  
           _All right, it . . . It says it’s from Singapore. Why don’t I believe that?_  
          Maybe because everyone’s gone missing from eastern USA.  
          It can’t be a VPN, though—if it is, it’s active all the time and managed by one person . . . but what if there’s multiple people handling it?  
          That would explain a lot, but it didn’t add up.  
           _No. This has to be a one-man project. There’s only one person behind this, I’m sure of it._  
          While he had the browser on his phone open, he took a shot in the dark. Trying to index and view the contents of the Singaporean IP, alas, returned no results.  
           _Of course I can’t view the server contents. It was worth a shot, at least._  
          Now came the dilemma: did he keep playing, or did he stop now? The longer the played, the greater the risk.  
           _What if it can see through my VPN? What if it checks my device-side information?_  
          Stop now.  
          Before things could get out of hand, Ryder closed the game. Contrary to what he expected, from Val and August’s experience, it didn’t re-open itself. He checked the task manager, with processes from all users shown. No unusual tasks caught his eye. There were a lot of Service Host processes running, but checking them all would be tedious. Instead, he’d rather let a virus scanner check everything at once. Malwarebytes was his software of choice; running it, he started a full scan.  
          He happened to pick up his phone again right as Fleur sent him a new text. Curious, he tapped the notification bubble to read it in full.  
          “So, I found this . . .” she started. Then, a YouTube video link. She followed this up with: “I can’t believe I never saw this before. I’m a big fan of the other guy here. I heard he got married earlier this year, but . . .”  
           _What does this have to do with anything?_ Ryder found himself wondering. Then, he opened the link on his phone. The first thing he noticed was its title was a date: “02-14-19”—followed by a timestamp. When it finished buffering, he watched. It took a few seconds for it to dawn on him: what he was looking at.  
          The video was in landscape mode, recorded from a cellphone by the looks of it. In it, there was a crowd of people in a chapel of some sort, with olive walls. Recorded from the midst of the crowd by someone leaning into the aisle, the camera focused in on three men at the altar. One, facing the camera, appeared to be a priest.  
          The man on the right was much taller than the other two. With such poor quality, it was hard to tell, but he looked like a pale African-American. His hair was black, bangs slicked up into what Ryder would describe as a quiff. He stood facing another, much smaller man. This was what caught Ryder’s eye—what made his jaw drop.  
          The other man was Max Aleshire. No doubt about it.  
           _What the fuck . . . ?_  
          Because the audio quality was worse than the video, it was near-impossible to make out their words. Holding something up, likely a ring judging by the context, the dark-haired man spoke first. Then he slipped it onto Max’s finger. Max did the same for him.  
          “You may kiss,” the priest said, being the only thing Ryder could thus far make out. Without further hesitation, the missing artist leaned forward and kissed this stranger.  
          Baffled and wondering how Fleur could’ve found this, Ryder looked at the description of the video.  
          “Filmed at the Ithaca Presbyterian Church in Brisbane on February 14 th, 2019. The public wedding of Cameron Fenn and Max Aleshire.” The only comments on the video remarked how brave and cute this was. Ryder looked up at the screen again as Cameron and Max waved at the cheering crowd. He got as good a look at Cameron’s face as he could, but the quality was abysmal.  
           _Wait. Fleur said she’s a fan of him?_  
          He closed the YouTube app and returned to his texts. “You know him?” he asked her.  
          “Cameron’s an independent author. I like his writing. I’ve been following his work for years. But he never mentioned the wedding or shared any footage. He only changed his bio online to say he got married. This is my first time seeing anything from it.”  
          Ryder took this in. _There’s no way this is a coincidence. Max goes missing, then winds up getting married to someone he never mentioned before? Besides, isn’t Singapore right next to Australia? And Bashful’s character has an Australian accent, too . . . This can’t be a coincidence. This Cameron guy is involved somehow. He has to be._  
          He looked down at his phone again. After a few seconds paused, he told Fleur, “Tell me everything you know about Cameron Fenn.”


	4. Player

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted on April 1st, 2018.

The past year should’ve been the best year of Max’s life. After all, he’d spent almost all of it married to the love of his life. Even though Cameron was a psychopath, since their marriage he’d seemed almost normal. No more murder, no blatant cruelty. He’d taken down _Bashful Bunny_. Why, then, was Max still troubled?  
          Regardless of how normal his life felt, his mental health still seemed questionable. He wanted so much to pretend everything was fine. At first, while honeymooning in his hometown of Brisbane, that’d been easy. When they returned to Pittsburgh, they moved to a new house, much smaller than the last but more to Max’s liking. Despite their troubled past together—how Cameron had murdered several people, some even with Max’s help—they came across as a normal married couple. They went on walks together, went to events, to the store, everything together. But the anxiety never left. It hung over Max like a plague. Rarely were there moments he didn’t fear the arrival of the police.  
          What concerned him more, though, was how distanced he felt from everything. There were moments of lucidity, but more often than not he felt lost. Each day he fell deeper and deeper, watching his body perform routine tasks. While inside, he had no control over these actions. It felt like he was in a dream, or perhaps in a stranger’s body.  
          Is _it mine anymore?_ He often wondered this. _Its name isn’t Max Aleshire anymore. Its name is Max Fenn. It belongs to Cameron. But who pilots it when I can’t reach the controls?_  
          Cameron wasn’t in perfect mental standing either. Not being able to murder, he instead turned his focus onto his writing. Due to his apparent compulsion to kill, though, every doomsday he’d slip into an episode of manic depression. This year, that meant that every Thursday, neither of them were checked in to reality. God only knew what they did on Thursdays.  
          It was on a day in May that, while they were sitting in the quaint living room, Cameron started to laugh. Beginning as a small chuckle, that laugh soon spiraled into an amused hysteria. Curled up on the couch, Max glanced at his husband, sitting at the computer. For a long beat, he let him continue. Then, finally, he felt himself ask, “What is it?”  
          Cameron turned to face him, dark caramel eyes wild with glee. “They fell for it.”  
          Max knew there was an unfitting smile on his face and that his eyes were unfocused, but his response was to tilt his head. “Fell for what?”  
          “Ash.”  
          That name—that one, small word—brought Max back from wherever he was. At once, the smile slipped from his face. Now able to focus and control his eyes, he turned them to the floor. Without thinking, his hand moved up to his throat and reached into the collar of his shirt. His fingers began fiddling with the golden heart pendant he wore. For two hours, even after Cameron stopped talking about the man, Max said nothing. Then, he slipped back into his pit of despair, allowing his subconscious to take the wheel again.  
          Now, it was December; the first December since their marriage. The exact date, Max wasn’t sure—at most, he knew it was the first week of the month. It might’ve been Thursday. Or Tuesday. Probably Thursday. Today, Cameron had assured him that _Bashful Bunny_ was now down for good.  
          Max had hoped he’d be better by now. Even then, he’d known it was a naïve hope. Though this month he was more lucid than normal, he knew it was only because last December, he’d met Ash. Less than a week later, in January, Cameron had killed Ash. So while he was better now than before, he worried what might become of his mental state come New Year’s Day.  
          Lately, he’d noticed a worrying change in himself, one that he blamed on Cameron’s late grandmother. When he was nineteen, before meeting Cameron, he was certain he’d never want kids. Even after the proposal, when the old woman inquired about adoption, he’d denied it. When had that changed? He wanted to say it happened that last October, on his 22nd birthday. On his 22nd birthday, while watching Cameron cut him a slice of apple pie. Was it the realization that Cameron noted his preference of pie over cake that caused it? Or was it something else?  
          The moment he noticed the thought, he tried to smother it. By now, its spark had started a fire. Try as he may, the image wouldn’t leave his head—the image of himself holding Cameron’s child. He’d stopped going outside with him a few weeks ago after seeing a married couple pushing a stroller.  
           _Stop being so clucky_ , he kept trying to tell himself. _It’ll never happen._  
          But then he found himself turning down Cameron’s subtle (and not-so) hints at sex. How long had it been since they last made love? Whatever the case, he couldn’t help it. Having sex now only served as a reminder of the act’s futility. They were both men; no matter how hard Max wished, their intercourse would never— _could_ never—result in a baby. He didn’t want to adopt. He wanted Cameron’s child. But that was impossible.  
          So, at some point, he’d turned to nicotine for comfort. After Cameron stole him from Boston, he’d started smoking cigarettes after he offered him one. Then, the writer stopped smoking altogether and urged him to as well. It was a little difficult, but he did with little repercussions. Now he was back, in deeper than before, because it helped. It kept him lucid, in control, and stress-free.  
          At the moment, he was sitting in the kitchen, alone. It was dark outside, though he knew it was only six in the evening. If it _was_ Thursday, it was the first Thursday in months that Cameron seemed a little like his usual self. The front door opened, but Max didn’t react to it. Nor did he react when he heard it close, or the scraping and pounding of Cameron’s boots on the floor. A minute or two later, the writer entered with two shopping bags. His long trench coat reminded Max a little of Patrick Bateman, though it was darker.  
          Without a word, Cameron took the bags to the counter on the other side of the kitchen and set them down. Then he started unpacking them, setting everything on the counter rather than putting it where it belonged. He bunched similar items together, working with a professional haste. Max, meanwhile, watched him do this, not moving nor speaking.  
          Once everything was sorted on the counter, Cameron crumpled the bags. Before throwing them away, he reached into the inner breast pocket of his coat. From it, he pulled a pack of cigarettes, which he held up and waved at the Aussie.  
          “Max,” he said. With that, he tossed the pack over. Max made a half-hearted effort to catch it—didn’t, allowing it to hit the counter and slide the rest of the way. After a beat, he picked it up and peeled the plastic wrapping off.  
          “Thanks,” he mumbled.  
          “I shouldn’t be enabling you,” Cameron remarked as he crushed the bags. He stepped on the panel of the trash bin, lifting the lid and slamming them in. After letting it close, he returned to the counter and began putting things where they belonged. “There’s a reason I quit.”  
          “Then why’d you get them for me?” Max asked as he pulled out one of the cigs and put it between his teeth. While searching for his lighter, he waited for a response.  
          Cameron seemed to have to think long and hard about that. Either that, or he zoned out for a few seconds. “If I knew, I wouldn’t’ve.” He started putting things into the fridge. “But the last thing I want is for you to have to say my name through an artificial voice box.”  
          Max didn’t respond. Instead, he found his lighter and used it to light up the cigarette. Taking a long drag, he appreciated its soothing burn before exhaling.  
          “Plus your secondhand smoke is a bit of a bother.”  
          “Sorry. Would you prefer I take this outside?”  
          Cameron shook his head. “I smoked off and on from the ages of 15 to 25. A little smoke won’t hurt for tonight.”  
          Max’s mouth shifted into a small, bittersweet smirk. “Reckon the damage is done?  
          “Indeed.”  
          The Aussie made a tiny chuckle. Finished packing things away, Cameron came over. Standing beside the island he was sitting at, he looked down at him with his dark, serious eyes. With the back of his fingers, he caressed Max’s cheekbone. Max leaned into the touch. It’d been so long since they’d made love that on its own it was almost enough to turn him on. He was eager to tackle him to the floor, picturing himself tearing his clothes off and letting him do the same to him. Letting him ravish him right there on the kitchen floor. If not that, then at least he wanted to hold his hand now. But he knew if he did that, one thing would lead to another and they’d wind up on the floor anyway.  
           _I don’t want that to happen. It won’t—  
          Oh, shut up! I want it, he wants it. Let it happen!  
          I just want his child . . ._  
          When Max did nothing else, Cameron pulled his hand away. Everything was silent and still for a beat or two. The writer then moved past him, heading to the other side of the room. As he took another drag of his cigarette, Max lowered his head. There was an ashtray on the counter; he moved it closer to himself, then tapped some ashes out into it. A drawer opened behind him, then closed. The silence with which this carried out, with which Cameron stepped closer, sent a shiver down his spine.  
          He closed his eyes as he felt the writer’s hand cup his shoulder-length brown hair, moving it back, away from his left shoulder. Cameron’s head leaned closer, lips close to his exposed ear. His breathing was hot and stable. Max struggled to remain composed.  
          “Do you love me, Max?” husked the writer.  
          Max opened his eyes, but didn’t move his head. “Yes.”  
          “Say it.”  
          “I love you, Cameron.”  
          “Do you trust me?” This question, he uttered on a mere breath against the ridges of the Aussie’s ear. Max could feel something cold lingering near the side of his throat, pulling warmth from his skin without even touching it.  
          “I don’t know,” he admitted, trying hard to mask his nervousness. “Should I?”  
          Cameron didn’t respond. After a long, tense pause, he lowered his other hand. Max’s gaze fell to the countertop, watching as his husband laid the knife down and slid it slowly, firmly away from himself.  
          “I don’t know if _I_ do,” he confessed in a whisper. Then he pulled away, marching off toward the dark living room.  
          Max watched him go, then looked back at the knife. It was the same knife he used to cut cake—to cut the apple pie—to cut Val Kozel’s throat. The same knife he’d always suspected Cameron would use to kill him. It should’ve scared him, how Cameron held it to his throat, but somehow it didn’t. To be honest, he wasn’t sure _how_ he felt, but he wasn’t scared.  
           _Cameron didn’t mean it. He’d never hurt me. That was what he promised me the first night we met in person. It was part of his wedding vows. Part of mine was that I’d never leave him. So, he didn’t mean it. It’s doomsday, and he’s antsy because there’s no one to kill. He didn’t mean it. But even if he did, I’ll stay, like I promised._  
          Max grounded out the rest of his cigarette and looked toward the living room. Cameron pulled off his coat, draping it across the arm of the couch.  
          “What would you have done if I’d said yes?” he asked.  
          Cameron didn’t answer right away. First, he adjusted the collar of his shirt and affirmed his confident stance. When it looked like he might respond, he didn’t. Instead, he headed toward the computer and thus out of sight. Max turned his eyes back to the countertop, running his hand down his face as he did.  
          He was well aware he was only blinding himself by denying the danger of the previous situation. Deep down, he knew Cameron likely had every intent to kill him, but that the lack of trust returned him to his senses. Staying with him was a dangerous game. Even so, it was a dangerous game he’d vowed to play until it killed him. The risks were obvious, so much so that Max now found it better to ignore them. Ignoring them helped him sleep without keeping one eye open.  
          “Max?”  
          The Aussie raised his head. “Yeah?” he called back.  
          A pause, then, “Come here.”  
          This request made Max hesitate. Going off tone alone, it didn’t sound like anything was wrong. If anything, the writer sounded pleased. It almost sounded like an invitation for sex. He pictured walking in to find Cameron’s cock out, in his hand.  
           _That’s stupid. Bloody hell, I’m pent up like a jack-in-the-box. Why am I doing this to myself?  
          Because I can’t handle reality._  
          “Max.”  
          “Coming.” Obedient as a pet dog, he came off of the island’s stool and approached the living room. To his simultaneous relief and disappointment, when Cameron swiveled the chair to face him, he was in no way exposed. There was a wry grin spread across his handsome dark ecru-skinned face, though.  
          “What is it?”  
          Cameron fidgeted slightly, tongue grazing over his lips for only a second. Before Max could take in how this small gesture affected him, he said, “It seems someone nabbed _Bashful Bunny_ before I took it down.”  
          Max didn’t know what to say at first. “That’s . . . too bad.”  
          “From what I can tell, they haven’t put it up online again.”  
          “Okay.”  
          Cameron smirked again.  
          “I don’t get it.”  
          “Max.”  
          “What?”  
          His smirk grew. “They’re playing it, Max.”  
          This revelation filled Max with a rollercoaster of emotions. Part of him felt afraid, worried for this unfortunate stranger. Another part felt relieved that Cameron could at last turn his violent compulsions onto someone else. Inside, there was a wild conflict of interests going on, half of him selfish and the other half guilty. On a verbal level, though, the most he could manage was a deflated “Oh.”  
          Leaning back in his seat, Cameron shrugged as if indifferent to this discovery. Though, his words gave much to the contrary. “Looks like this is our final player, Max. I don’t know about you, but I think this ought to be treated as a celebration.”  
          “What”—his voice was unsteady, so he stopped, swallowed, tried again. “What do you mean?”  
          “You know exactly what I mean.” Cameron’s eyes narrowed, his luscious brown lips curling in sadistic rapture. His malevolence radiated off of him like waves of toxic radiation. Yet Max found himself basking in its glow, waiting eagerly for his next words. “Happy Doomsday.”  
          The Aussie sank a little, legs feeling like jelly. He managed to remain standing, though. Looking down at his husband, he dwelled on his statement for a bit before finally responding to it. “I see.”


	5. Research

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted on April 5th, 2018.

Fleur had provided Ryder with as much information as she had, but it wasn’t enough for him to work with. So far, what he knew of Cameron Fenn was that he was a writer from Pittsburgh, married to Max Aleshire. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2012 and was at one point a student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His other hobbies included working out and “doing volunteer work”. Last but not least, he had a few photographs of himself online. Beyond this, Cameron Fenn was an enigma.  
          It was 9:30 in the morning, and Ryder was sitting in his English Literature class. Today the class brought in laptops so everyone could write an essay about the book they’d finished reading together. Ryder was using his own rather than the school-provided ones, though. It felt more secure.  
          Though he had his laptop open on his desk, like most of the other students he wasn’t actually writing an essay. Instead, he had various tabs open on his browser, all related to Cameron. At the moment, he was looking at the writer’s Goodreads Author page. Near the top, his information stated he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 13th, 1992. His website and Twitter pages were both open in other tabs already. He listed his preferred genres as “Horror, Suspense, Thriller”. Under influences, he had “Real crime dramatizations”.  
           _Sure, sure. That’s what he calls them._  
          Ryder still had no proof that Cameron was at all involved, but he couldn’t shake his suspicion. Looking at his bio, written in third-person, he felt disdain for the writer right off the bat. Something about the way his life sounded so damn perfect; the bio seemed like a means to brag about his good fortune. Reading it over made Ryder green with envy.  
          Cameron’s latest book, titled _Under the Influence_ , didn’t have too many reviews. Even so, its average was 4.3/5, which Ryder thought was rather generous for an independent novelist. It had three editions, two of which were eBooks, the other paperback. All of them had been published two months ago, on October 10th. What little of the description he read suggested it was about a young man who travels to Switzerland and gets stalked.  
           _Blah. People like this shit?_  
          His website was, at best, generic-looking. The about page contained the same bio from Goodreads. Something Ryder found interesting was that nowhere did his bio mention the name of his husband.  
           _To be fair, if I married someone who went missing and was the main suspect in a murder, I wouldn’t give their name out either . . ._  
          On Twitter, all of Cameron’s posts related to his writing. The last one was from November, linking to a good review for _Under the Influence_. There were no personal tweets, only obligatory author posts.  
          Already out of things to look at, Ryder turned his attention to Google. But rather than search up the writer, first he looked for information on his husband. A search of “Max Fenn” returned no relevant results, though. Everything he found was about complete strangers who happened to share the name. None of them had formerly been Max Aleshire. Ryder huffed.  
           _Damn it. This is getting me nowhere. It feels like I’m wasting time._  
          Searching “Cameron Fenn”, he attempted to find something, anything else. What he discovered was that the writer had no official Facebook pages. Not a page, nor a personal profile by the looks of it. This, Ryder found strange. What kind of content producer would choose not to have a Facebook page? Why wouldn’t he at least have a profile? Ryder didn’t like the platform himself, but he and everyone he knew had profiles. Even Max had had one, as well as a page for his art. But Cameron Fenn didn’t have either, nor did Max use his since his disappearance. The last posts on Max’s page were from his parents, begging for someone to help find him.  
           _I suppose if he had a Facebook page, it would make it too easy for people like me to get more personal information . . . Or it would make it too easy for me to contact a friend of his and get info from them. Plus all his author photos look more like some male model . . ._  
          Fueled by a whim, he found himself saving Cameron’s Goodreads profile image to his student drive. Then, he clicked and dragged it into Google to do an image search.  
           _These can’t be his pictures. I’m calling bullshit on this._  
          Yet, to his surprise, all he found linked back to him. It seemed he was the original source of the pictures, whether they were of him or a friend. With this, though, he could only assume it was him.  
           _It fits with the “perfect life” biography, at least, but does it make it more or less credible?_  
          With a sigh, the actor leaned back in his seat. For all he knew, he could be studying this guy for no reason. Cameron could be only a stranger who happened to find Max. Maybe Max _did_ flee from Boston on his own, and they crossed paths by fluke.  
           _Fuck that. That’d be too convenient. My gut is telling me this man is dangerous. He’s involved in this somehow, I know he is!_  
          There had to be more information somewhere. If he was right, then Cameron ought to have a criminal record from his childhood. Being involved in something as large as this, there had to have been some point where he got caught for something smaller. If not, he wouldn’t be taking such precautions to withhold data.  
           _Dad could get those records from someone in Pittsburgh if he asked, right? Or would that have to go through a detective? They might ignore the request outright since it’s “not in his jurisdiction”._  
          Thus, he found himself at a bit of a loss. There was no one to turn to. Cameron’s small fan base knew only as much as he did. If Cameron was as rich as he sounded, too, then that only made things worse. What if, assuming there _were_ records, he bribed the police to keep their mouths shut about them? It sounded ridiculous, but Ryder had heard of worse cases.  
           _There’s no point even telling my dad about Cameron. He’d only dismiss it right off the bat, since I have no proof._  
          For the time being, Ryder realized he might have to accept defeat.  
          A few hours later, at 12:30 that afternoon, he was back in his computer science class with Isaac. Though he was still a tad frustrated, he’d spent the lunch break trying to forget about Cameron Fenn. Instead, he did his best to focus on his work. As usual, the class assignment was easy to finish. So, once he was done, he started working on the essay he was supposed to have started three hours earlier. He was about to get into the groove of it when he was rudely interrupted:  
          “Hey, Ryder.”  
          Trying not to let his annoyance show through, Ryder acted calm as he turned his head toward Isaac. “Yeah?”  
          “Did you wind up playing that shitty game?” his friend inquired with a hint of childlike excitement—and some morbid curiosity.  
          “Not really,” Ryder confessed. “I quit after the title screen.”  
          “Aww, lame. Dude, play it here.”  
          “What? No way. I’ve got better things to do.”  
          “Better things to do? Yesterday you were eager to play it.”  
          “I never said I wanted to play it. I wanted to figure out what IP address it was sending shit to. Turns out it’s in—”  
          “Boston, right?”  
          “Wrong. Singapore.”  
          “Singapore? Eh, close enough.”  
          Ryder furrowed his brows. “Do you know where Singapore is?”  
          “It’s near New York City, isn’t it?”  
          The actor said nothing, only staring at his friend in concern. Sometimes Isaac’s ignorance made it almost impossible for him to resist hitting himself in the face.  
           _The American school system has failed us._  
          “What’s the matter, Ryder?” Isaac teased, unaware of his inner grief. “Did that big, dumb, pink bunny _scare_ you?”  
          “Ha, ha. Yeah, no. I’m not scared.”  
          “I dare you to play it.”  
          “Dares are childish.”  
          “You _are_ scared, aren’t you?”  
          “I’m not. There’s just no point—”  
          “Prove it.”  
          “What?”  
          “Prove you’re not scared. You still have it, don’t you? Go on.”  
          Ryder gazed at his screen and thought about it. If he backed down, Isaac would never let him hear the end of it. For the rest of the year, he’d tease him for being scared of a stupid cartoon rabbit. But would it be wise to play it over such a public connection?  
           _Then again, it’s the_ school’s _IP address, not mine. If this’ll give any address, it’ll be the school’s. It’s not like whoever’s behind this would abduct someone from a_ school _._  
          I’m going to regret this.  
          “Fine. I doubt it’s worth our time, but fine.”  
          Isaac grinned from ear to ear. “That’s more like it.”  
          With a low sigh, the actor opened his student drive and found the ZIP archive containing the game. “I have to extract it first, but I don’t think it’ll fit.”  
          “Extract it to the desktop.”  
          Ryder rolled his eyes. “That almost makes it _more_ of a hassle to remove.” Still, he did as his friend suggested. Slow as ever, a progress bar appeared and inched across the window. The two boys both waited with a degree of impatience.  
          “So, did you catch the game last night?” Isaac asked.  
          “Isaac, neither of us follow sports.”  
          “Heh, who said I was talking about sports?”  
          Ryder shook his head. “I don’t even want to know.”  
          After about two minutes, the game finally finished extracting to the desktop.  
          “All right, are we ready?”  
          “Do it, chickenshit.”  
          “Whatever, dickbag.” Despite his reluctance, Ryder forced himself to double-click the game’s executable. A few seconds later, it opened, presenting him and his friend with the same title screen he’d seen before.  
          “Ooh, it looks like hot garbage already,” Isaac mocked. “This oughta be good.”  
          Ryder took a deep, discreet breath. Then, he pressed enter on the “Start” option. The title screen faded out. What faded in next was a stage with an audience of children facing it. For the children, the sprites were similar to the default for the engine—tiny with big heads—but in flat colors with black outlines. The same coloring applied to the tiles for the map and stage itself.  
           _At least the screen’s darkened. Not that it’s that big a plus, but I swear I’ve seen projects that don’t know how to use the screen color command._  
          Playing it on a school computer with no headphones, they had no sound. So, when the screen lit up and Bashful Bunny appeared, it seemed abrupt. The tall pink rabbit, taller than the default sprite size, stepped closer to the apron of the stage.  
          “Hiya, kids!” a textbox read. “Uncle Bashful here!” An icon at the bottom middle of the box appeared, signaling for Ryder to progress. Casual as ever, he pressed the enter key again, causing new text to appear letter by letter: “So glad you could all make it today, because I’ve got something special planned!”  
          “I’m gonna diddle these kids! Ha ha!” Isaac chirped in some bad impersonation of Mickey Mouse. Ryder struggled not to laugh, but had a hard time of it.  
          “He’s—”  
          “Anyone who calls themselves ‘uncle’—come on. You just know they diddle _all_ the kids.”  
          “He’s Australian, not Mickey Mouse.”  
          “Oh.” His friend then leaned in, face showing mock surprise. “ _Craaai_ -key,” he croaked, “ _woo’ja_ look at that _gay-tah_!”  
          “Shut the fuck up,” Ryder said through his chuckles as he tapped the key yet again.  
          “That’s right: today one lucky kiddo will join me on an adventure about ‘love’!”  
          Isaac’s green eyes widened. “Oh, I’ll bet they will! _Crai_ -key, look at all these kids I’ve gotta diddle!”  
          “Please stop saying ‘diddle’,” the actor begged.  
          “I’ll only need one brave little ankle-biter,” Bashful concluded. “Anyone?” Attempting to progress the text caused the entire box to disappear. Then, nothing happened.  
          “Oh, shit. Did it crash?” Isaac laughed.  
          “No, it waits for the player to press a key, I think.” To prove this, Ryder pressed the left arrow key. Sure enough, after he did, Bashful stepped onto to the stage apron.  
          “You! How about you? Are you a guy or a gal?” At the bottom-right corner of the textbox, a prompt appeared with those two options respectively.  
          “Hey, tell it you’re a chick.”  
          Ryder did so, deciding not to mention that he’d planned to from the get-go. After that the game stopped again for a beat.  
          “What now?”  
          “Give it a second.”  
          At last, a child sprite—with dark brown hair and a baby blue dress—stepped out from the audience.  
          “Get on up here, little missus!” Bashful said. The girl skipped up onto the stage, taking her place beside him before turning down and facing the screen. “What’s your name, kiddo?” the rabbit inquired. Then, a prompt requesting text input. Already filling it was the name “Butterscotch”—Ryder tapped the backspace key until the box was blank.  
          “What should we call ourselves?”  
          Isaac gasped. “Oh, the power. Let me think for a second.”  
          “How about ‘ass-banana’?” Ryder asked, hinting at what Val and August had named their character in Danish.  
          “Nah, that’s too juvenile.”  
          The actor glanced at his friend and raised his brows, but the irony seemed lost on him.  
          “I’ve got it: Mike Hunt.”  
          Shaking his head in amusement, Ryder typed it in and confirmed.  
          “Cheers!” exclaimed Bashful. “I’m gonna call you ‘Butterscotch’ though, okay?”  
          “ _Laaaame_ ,” Isaac groaned.  
          “This might get sort of complicated, but I have bad memory. What month were you born in?” A new prompt, this one a box near the bottom center of the screen. It said “Jan”; pressing the up or down arrows caused it to change to other months.  
          “What’s a good fake date?”  
          “9/11,” Isaac responded in a heartbeat. Ryder shot him another look, this one more shocked than the last, but when he got no response he obeyed. Once he reached “Sept”, he selected it.  
          Bashful responded: “Back to school!” Then, “Now, Butterscotch, what’s the day you were born on?” Another prompt, this one defaulting to “00”.  
          “Dude! September 0th!”  
          But Ryder shook his head. “I don’t know why it defaults to that. It never accepts it.” With that, he progressed the counter up to “11”, then confirmed.  
          “Yikes!” Bashful replied. “Finally, what’s your birth year?” By default, this prompt displayed “1900”.  
          “Tell it you were born in 2100.”  
          Try as Ryder may, the first two digits were grouped together, and the only two options were “19” and “20”. “Sorry.”  
          “2099, then.”  
          Ryder obeyed. As he rolled the counter over, Isaac laughed.  
          “Negative 99 years old, baby. Think about it, Ryder: we’ll both be dead before Mike here is even born.”  
          “You’re an idiot.”  
          When he confirmed the birth year, Bashful asked, “How old does that make you, then?” Another prompt starting at “00”.  
          “Neat. Just go back.”  
          “Um . . .” Ryder furrowed his brows. “Well, it, uh . . .” He rolled the second zero back, which turned the output not to “-1”, but to “09”. “It doesn’t work like that.”  
          “Having fun playing games, boys?”  
          The sound of Ms. Lynwood’s voice made both teens jolt. In a rushed panic, Ryder exited the game. Then, they both turned to face her. Hands on her hips, she smiled through her exasperation and turned to Isaac.  
          “Are you finished your work, Isaac?” she inquired.  
          Isaac stared for a moment, then plastered on a guilty grin. “Ms. Lynwood, has anyone told you your hair looks beautiful today?”  
          She blinked. “Get back to work.”  
          “Yes, Ms. Lynwood.”  
          She turned her eyes to Ryder. In her annoyance, the actor noticed she looked a little bit like Zooey Deschanel.  
           _Not quite as pretty, though, and definitely older._  
          “Ryder, I told you—”  
          “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”  
          “It better not. You’re a good kid and I appreciate you getting your work done so fast, but I can’t have you slowing down other students. Understood?”  
          “Absolutely.”  
          “Good.” She nodded her head, then lingered a moment longer before finally wandering away.  
          “TILF, but a total buzzkill,” Isaac mumbled.  
          Ryder shook his head with a sigh. “Can I delete the game now?”  
          “Yeah. It seemed pretty boring.”  
          The actor was happy to drag the game into the recycle bin, doing so with no hesitation. Another progress bar appeared, inching as slow as ever. While it did, he pulled out his phone. Though he considered texting Fleur, letting her know he’d played it, he decided against it.  
           _Why should she need to know? Why would she_ want _to? No need to make her more nervous; we’ve got rehearsal in a few minutes._  
          Once the game moved into the recycle bin, Ryder opened it. There were a few other files from students who’d used the computer before him. For a beat, he hovered his cursor over the button labeled “Empty the Recycle Bin”. Then, he clicked it. A prompt appeared, inquiring if he wanted to delete the files contained within.  
           _Good goddamn riddance._  
          With a purposeful click, he selected the highlighted option: “Yes”.


End file.
